Online Tools

Kudos to You, Talking Books Librarian!

As the President and CEO of AFB, it is always a pleasure to hear there are people out there who are spreading the word about our organization (and who aren't your own employees!). This was certainly the case yesterday, when a colleague informed me about the Talking Books Librarian. This blogger has written quite a few posts about AFB and has even linked to AFB Senior Site, AccessWorld, and AFB eNews. And the blog is only a month old! I encourage you all to check out the blog and share it with your friends.

Many thanks for spreading the word about AFB!

AFB Senior Site Officially Launches

It's a big day for AFB. This morning we officially launched AFB Senior Site—a new, totally accessible, multimedia web site geared toward the millions of seniors with age-related vision loss and their family and friends. With diseases like age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy expected to double as the nation's 78 million baby boomers reach retirement age and beyond, we felt it was really important to help Americans understand that people can continue to live normal, active lives with vision loss. This message is heard again and again in video diaries on the site. Take this one from our dear friend Deanne Jackson, who talks about how she learned to cope with macular degeneration:

VIDEO: Deanne Jackson: From Despair to Hope

The overall goal of the new site is to help this country's growing low vision population maintain independence. On the site you'll find links to community resources and easy-to-implement tips on how to cook, read, get around your community, play sports, pay bills, shave, make phone calls, tell time, use the internet, shop, apply makeup, and organize your clothing with vision loss.

We're really excited about this new web site and encourage all of you to take a look at it and share the information with as many people as possible. We want all Americans to know that little changes make a big difference, and there is hope and help out there.

Everybody's eBaying. Here's how.

If you haven't explored the wonderful world of eBay—the online hot spot for buying and selling collectables and other items—you should really check it out. And if you're feeling like you need a "how to eBay" course, I've got one for you. There's a great article titled "Buy It, Sell It: eBay 101" in this month's AccessWorld®. It walks you through everything from signing up to buying, listing, and selling, and it's really easy to follow. eBay isn't 100 percent screen reader friendly, but it's still possible to use, so try it out and let me know what you think.

Google's in Braille Today!

What a pleasant surprise this morning to wake up and hear the Google logo is in braille in honor of World Braille Day and Louis Braille's birthday. It's funny because about a year ago we were talking in the office about how cool it would be if Google turned braille for a day... and voila! This is really exciting.

Braille, which was invented in the early 1800s by 15-year-old Louis Braille, has given people with vision loss a way to read and write English, and any other language for a couple of hundred years now. For many of us, it is the key to intellectual freedom, independence, and employment opportunities.

When you first touch braille, it feels like a series of jumbled dots. But like any code based on a logical system, once you understand it and get practice feeling it, reading and writing becomes easy. Braille literacy is an important issue for me personally, and for all of us at AFB. We have a staff of people dedicated to ensuring schoolchildren with vision loss get their braille textbooks on time—a huge problem due to the braille transcriber shortage.

And if you'd like to see what your name looks like in braille or learn more about this important code, visit our Braille Bug® website that offers fun ways to learn about braille. Admittedly, the braille bug was designed for kids, but there's a kid in all of us, right?

But most importantly, I want to say, "Thanks, Google!" We hope today's logo helps raise awareness of this important, valuable code.

Holiday Toy Guide Helps Shoppers Find the Best Gifts for Children with Disabilities

The holiday season is in full swing. Decorations are up, the weather is getting colder, and people are busy buying gifts. I've always found shopping for children one of the most challenging tasks because you don't want to disappoint with the wrong gift. Selecting the right present for a child with a disability can be even more daunting.

That's why each year AFB partners with the Toy Industry Foundation, Inc., and the Alliance for Technology Access to produce Let's Play: A Guide to Toys for Children with Special Needs. The Guide features toys reviewed by more than 100 children with a variety of special needs, including children with vision loss. It also offers descriptions of why certain toys are more appropriate and fun, in addition to labels indicating who may find specific toys most enjoyable. The toys featured in Let's Play aren't "specialty" toys, but rather mainstream products—from manufacture's like Hasbro and Fisher-Price—that are also great selections for children without disabilities.

It's a useful resource. I wish shopping for everyone on my list came with a guide!

Using RSS Readers

We've been talking a lot about RSS readers since our accessibility evaluation, so I thought I'd take a second to explain what they are and how to sign up for one. After all, this is pretty new technology and I for one, didn't know what RSS was until a month or two ago...

I think of my RSS reader as an inbox where I receive updated content from the blogs and news sites I like to read. It's sort of like TiVo for the web... we no longer have to scroll through web sites to read updated news or posts; instead, we can have the new content delivered directly to our RSS readers. For example, Bloglines provides me with direct links to new articles on the blogs I like to read.

Signing up for an RSS reader is pretty easy. I recommend using the Bloglines "Notifier" or Webbie, an accessible RSS reader out of the UK. Just log on to these sites and follow the sign up instructions and download the tools to your desktop. Once you've done that, you can subscribe to feeds on blogs and news sites. Most blogs have RSS or XML icons that indicate they have an RSS feed. You may also see things like:

Subscribe with Bloglines:
Subscribe with Newgator:
Subscribe with My Yahoo!:

Unfortunately, not all web sites label their RSS buttons, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to sign up for their feeds if you're using a screen reader. But try subscribing to our blog for starters... our buttons are labeled... promise.

A new era in publishing...

Now, I really don't want to use the blog to shamelessly plug our programs, but AFB just launched a new initiative—ePublications—that's significant for us because it broadens access to the material we publish in a cost effective and convenient manner.

It also represents a new era in publishing.

AFB is one of the few scholarly publishers to offer material in this format and we hope to be a model for others. This method of publishing provides simultaneous access to publications for readers who are blind or have low vision. Nothing will ever replace curling up with a good book, but for researchers, educators, and other professionals, more access to information means more opportunities for promoting independence for people with vision loss.